Sunday, March 29, 2009

Bipolar Flatlines

One of the failed predictions of global warming hysteriacs is that the high latitudes will warm the most. This means that the temperatures at these sites should be warming a lot. Vince Stricherz of The University of Washington writes:

"The impact of global warming has become obvious in high latitude regions, including Alaska, Siberia and the Arctic, where melting ice and softening tundra are causing profound changes. But, contrary to popular belief, the most serious impact in the next century likely will be in the tropics, says a group of researchers headed by a University of Washington ecologist." Vince Stricherz, "Warming most evident at high latitudes, but greatest impact will be in tropics" Aug. 11, 2005 http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=11632

And with lots of press, Meehl et al proclaimed that the higher latitudes would warm the most--not this is from the scientific literature, and represents the 'consensus' view.

"Geographic patterns of warming (Fig. 2) show more warming at high northern latitudes and over land, generally larger-amplitude warming in the CCSM3 as compared to the PCM, and geographic temperature increases roughly proportional to the amplitude of the globally averaged temperature increases in the different scenarios (Fig. 1B)." Gerald A. Meehl et al, "How Much More Global Warming and Sea Level Rise?" Science 307(2005):1772

Of course, the conclusion of this paper was not based upon observational evidence, it was based upon computer models that they think are valid. Consensus has no need of actual observational data.

Since we supposedly have had so much global warming over the past 100 years, surely we can see this enhanced warming in the high latitudes. The problem is, you don't. Let's start with the Russian data. Siberian data doesn't show much warming.

I have posted the max and min temperatures for each year. I have chosen to do that rather than deal with the annual mean temperature because the data sets have a lot of missing data. The maximum and minimum monthly temperature are more understandable than mean values which must be biased to some preferred value. All values are in degree C.

Here is Hatanga, Russia. Note that the temperature doesn't seem to be rising very quickly.

Here is Suntar, Russia. It too shows no sign of this wonderful and amazing rise in temperature which we are assured of.

Here is Vanavara, Russia

One final picture from Russia, the temperature which shows the largest rise of those I downloaded. And it too doesn't show much rise to the eye. It shows the largest regression slope of all that I downloaded. In my next post, probably tomorrow, I am going to explain why a regression slope might be misleading, especially in a cyclical phenomenon, which the temperature is.

OK, we have seen little warming in Siberia, let's go to the other end of the world, a place I was at in January, 2009, Antarctica. The data can be downloaded at this place. The Amundsen-Scott station is at the South Pole. This is the one place on earth where one should see the rise in temperature merely due to radiative effects. The site is thousands of miles from the ocean, so there is no amelioration of the temperature from that source. There is no urban heat island effect. Doing the same thing to the Antarctican data shows once again, little warming, especially since we are told that it is at high latitudes that we should see the most warming.

Here is the Amundsen Scott Station at the South Pole

Not much warming there, infact the annual mean temperature there is actually cooling since 1958 when the station started, at least that is what the regression slope says. Why doesn't CO2 work there to warm it up?

Here is the Russian Vostok Station Max Min temperature

And here is the Mawson Station

Not much warming there. Mawson's annual average temperature as well as yearly maximum temperature are cooling off. Once again, this raises the question, why doesn't CO2 work in Antarctica, the place where one should get the purest CO2 forcing signal.

Speaking of the annual mean temperature, let's look at Mawson's with a linear CO2 curve placed on top of it. One can see that the Mawson annual mean temperature doesn't rise when CO2 rises.

What we have is bipolar flat lines. Neither pole is warming as the global warming hysteriacs claim. They don't care about observational data.

While I was working with the Russian data, downloaded from here a friend on another list alerted me to another source of Russian temperature charts which should be mentioned not because I got any data there but this site also lets people see the raw data. The other site is here

About Me

I have had 39 years experience looking for oil and gas around the world, from Scotland, to Algeria, to the East Coast of the United States, South Texas, West Texas, the Rocky Mountain region, Alaska and China. I have found 33 oil fields and drilled my share of dry holes. The various positions held by me include: Manager of Geophysical Training for a major oil Co., Chief Geophysicist for a small independent oil company, Geophysical Manager - Onshore Gulf Coast, Geophysical Manager--Gulf of Mexico and Chief Geophysicist for China , Manager Geophysics for the US Offshore, Geophysical Manager for the North Sea, Director of Integrated Technology, Director of Exploration for China with a large independent oil company and lived in Beijing China. I speak Mandarin (not fluent but able to communicate). Currently I have my own geophysical consulting firm, living in Houston